Boxee Preps a New Over-the-Top Box

Just ahead of this week's International CES gadgetfest in Las Vegas, buzz about over-the-top video (OTT) and cord-cutting dominate today's cable news headlines:

Missing from all those stories about the Iomega TV with Boxee + Storage product is that users of file-sharing sites will get their hands on a device that comes with up to 2 Terabytes of storage. (See Boxee Launches Cord-Cutting Box .)

Word of the new Boxee box took some sting out of the delays hindering Boxee's integration of VUDU Inc. and Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX). That's not expected to happen until at least the end of January.

Lots of pre-CES buzz about Steve Ballmer’s plans to unveil set-top software that'll help Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) take on Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) Roku Inc. , and other OTT video players. (See Microsoft Takes On TiVo .)

Noting that CE manufacturers are slashing prices on 3DTVs, Henry Blodget proclaims the technology was "dead on arrival." (See 2010 Top Ten: 3DTV Hype Builders .)

Dish Network LLC (Nasdaq: DISH) will raise prices on programming packages by $3 to $5 per month in February, but promises to freeze those rates until January 2013.

Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) is hiking rates for standard cable by 6.8 percent and raising fees for digital cable by 7.7 percent on Feb. 1 in central New York.

USA Today dedicated a whopping 1,800 words to a front-page story about cord-cutting, so it's apparently an official mainstream trend just as CES gets ready for takeoff. (See Comcast CEO Dismisses Cord-Cutting Trend .)

— Steve Donohue, Special to Light Reading Cable